The Five Stages of Grief - Season 3
by ExtraordinaryElliot
Summary: The Five Stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance - are part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. TW - suicidal thoughts


_I just wish we could go back one more time and begin it,  
_ _Back before I lost myself somewhere_

* * *

 ** _Denial_**

 _Sherlock is dead._

He doesn't allow himself to believe that, for once, his friend was out-smarted. He won't believe, refuses to believe, that Sherlock is dead - in the ground, six-feet under with the rest of the devils and demons. When people ask him, "How are you?" and he replies with, "Fine," they'll wait for him to continue. When he doesn't, they say, "I'm sorry about Sherlock." He'll put on a confused face, asking them why their sorry. He's not dead. He can't be dead. Sherlock would look death in the face, and he would give it a sarcastic smile, inviting it over for tea. He was like that. But dead? No. He's not dead. _Sherlock Holmes doesn't die._

Sometimes, when he goes back to 221B, he'll throw a pen to the chair where Sherlock usually sits - it will clatter to the ground, the sound echoing in the dead silence of the apartment. He'll sit down, with his face blank, as he thinks over all their adventures, ups and downs, left and rights. He doesn't grieve - no, he'll just wonder where it all went. Where Sherlock went. Maybe he went to the store. Or he's on a case and was going to send a text any minute. And when he doesn't get one, he gets up and decides he'll wait it out on the streets of London.

His friends worry about him, saying he should see someone about the death. _The death of who?_ They shake their heads in disbelief, wondering what happened to the man who was more logical. Than they realize he died with Sherlock and wasn't coming back for a long, long time.

* * *

 **Anger**

He screams at the sky, yelling at God why, why, did he allow Sherlock to die? Why wasn't he there to save him? Why couldn't he get his ass down from heaven and do _something_ instead of doing _nothing_? Nothing he says helps him, even though he tries. He keep trying. He's angry, and he has to take that anger out on someone. And right now, God seems like that someone. _You can't do anything, can you? Why make someone, someone who is designed to withstand anything, jump from the roof of a hospital? Why? Why?_

He's back with his therapist. She's asking him, _how are you?_ He can barley hear her over the blood roaring through his ears, but he answers with a tense _I'm okay_. Because that's what people expect - it's been three months of denial, now he's okay. _Okay, okay, okay. Fine._ Whatever - he'll play the part. But she can see right through him, and she's saying No, you're not. Yeah, no shit. Of course not. He saw his best friend fall from a roof and die. How could anyone be _fine_?

When he freaks out and starts yelling, she sends him to some anger management classes. That's where he meets her - the tall blonde. She's his instructor, and she seems to spend more time with him more then anyone else. Maybe he's just angrier then the others. _My name is Mary._ It's like a hand reaching for him through the angry red-mist, and he grabs it, accepting her offer for dinner at seven.

* * *

 **Bargaining**

Even with his new girlfriend, he still screams every now and than. He sometimes looks at the sky, praying, over and over again, _bring him back. I'll exchange my life for his. Just. Bring. Him. Back._ He never gets his wish. The grave remains full. He'll visit it, when things get to hard. Sometimes Mary goes with him, sometimes she let's him have his space. He'll sit down, tracing 221B into the grass. There are never any flowers - no one else but him and Mary come by. He once asked Molly why she doesn't visit. She says she's too busy, but he can see she's lying - he thinks nothing of it.

Every night, before he goes to bed, he'll allow himself to bargain again. Maybe till midnight. Sometimes it's only five minutes, sometimes five hours. She helps him get through it, pulling him out of the darkness before he can allow himself to get to far in. He will go back to anger, at times - he'll yell, scream, hit the walls. She's always there, sitting him down and giving him a stern talk about why he can't do this, can't do that - so he does it when she's not home.

When bargaining doesn't work, he gives up. He drifts towards the darkness, allowing it to swallow him.

* * *

 **Depression**

He's always on edge. He keeps the gun in his dresser, safety off, for when it gets too hard to deal with. The knife on the table grabs his attention more than once. His nightmares of war are back, but now he's there - begging him to save him, saying he's a monster for not doing so. So he stops sleeping - he's on eight cups of coffee every day, never seen without a cup. His friends don't question - not even Mary, who doesn't seem to see him drifting further and further from life.

He's holding the knife one day - and it's a memorable way to go. Head thrown back, silver blade to his throat, hands shaking as he tries to hold in his tears. He hears a small voice, telling him to do it. Go with him. Than another voice - _don't. Please. Let me have something to come back to. Please._ It's him, the reason he's standing in this small room in the first place. So he puts the blade down and wonders out, putting on his best smile and showing the world he's okay, he's fine, he's not going to die.

And as long as he doesn't think about Sherlock, he won't.

* * *

 **Acceptance**

He accepts his friend his gone. He's not sad. He's not angry. He's okay, for once. And to celebrate his acceptance, he takes his girlfriend to dinner, feeling the ring in his pocket weigh him down as he thinks his question over. How should he ask? He has no time to think about it, as their sitting down and ordering their drinks. They make small talk, and he sees the knowing smile on her face. It's like a weight is lifted, because she wouldn't be smiling if she wasn't going to say yes, right?

Than there's that pesky waiter who won't leave them alone. He sounds familiar enough - the accent is bad, but the voice ... He doesn't want to look up and see her smile, or else he might drive them to Las Vegas right then and there and get married. But that damned waiter won't leave them alone! So he turns to tell him to leave - and his heart stops, stomach dropping as he takes in the face of his dead friend. The words he's said in the mirror, over and over, come back to him, and he wants to cry and scream and laugh as Sherlock makes the situation a joke.

 _Sherlock is dead._

 _Sherlock is **dead**._

 ** _Sherlock is dead._**


End file.
